Playing Army by Nancy Stroer – Interview and Giveaway

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What would we find under your bed?

I have drawers under my bed and mostly they contain writing stuff – notebooks, boxes of notes (I keep a box for each novel I’m working on), my laptop, and stationery/office supplies. It’s for ease of access so I can just reach down, grab what I need, and get to work!

What was the scariest moment of your life?

There have been a couple of times when my kids were in danger that still scare me when I think of them. When my oldest was six and we had just moved to England, the bus driver bringing her home after her FIRST day of school let her off ALONE at the WRONG bus stop. Luckily another mother was there to pick up her child and realized immediately what had happened. She took my daughter home and called the school, so my daughter was never actually alone in a brand-new city. But the memory still sends my heart racing. I still want to hurt somebody when I think about what could have happened.

Do you listen to music while writing? If so what?

I can’t write and have music in the background. I do always create playlists from the time period the stories are set as part of the research process, and also in an effort to immerse myself in as much of a similar sensory experience as possible. I want to teach a spin class to the 1995 sound track for Playing Army! It was a good year for music! There will have to be Alanis Morisette, of course.

What is something you’d like to accomplish in your writing career next year?

Well, I’m planning to complete a solid second draft of the novel that follows this one, and to start getting feedback from my Army Girl alpha readers. I’m also very much looking forward to teaching workshops to other female members of the military community who want to write about their experiences. I’ve done a couple already in the promotion of Playing Army and they’ve been joyful hours, well spent! I’m also planning to speak to some book discussion groups. I’ve been in book groups for literal decades, and think it adds such a cool dimension to the reading experience when you can talk to the author about how a story came about.

How long did it take you to write this book?

Yikes – I started Playing Army more than twenty years ago! But it was trunked for a long, long time before I came back to it. So I’ve probably been writing, rewriting, and tinkering with it for five or so years? I’m a slow, persistent writer. I hope that pays off in the reading of it.

It’s 1995 and the Army units of Fort Stewart, Georgia are gearing up to deploy to Bosnia, but Lieutenant Minerva Mills has no intention of going to war-torn eastern Europe. Her father disappeared in Vietnam and, desperate for some kind of connection to him, she’s determined to go on a long-promised tour to Asia. But the Colonel will only release her on two conditions—that she reform the rag-tag Headquarters Company so they’re ready for the peacekeeping mission, and that she get her weight within Army regs, whichever comes second. Min only has one summer to kick everyone’s butts into shape but the harder she plays Army, the more the soldiers—and her body—rebel. If she can’t even get the other women on her side, much less lose those eight lousy pounds, she’ll never have another chance to stand where her father once stood in Vietnam, feeling what he felt. The Colonel may sweep her along to Bosnia or throw her out of the Army altogether. Can you fake it until you make it? Min is about to find out.

Enjoy an Excerpt

I sucked in my gut and forced the top button of my BDU trousers through the hole. Pounds never melted off me like they did in the diet pill commercials. As I wrestled with my body’s ill-fitting container the latrine door opened and two pairs of boots tromped in. Specialist Pettit’s voice floated over the sound of running water. “Not to be mean or anything, but female commanders are the worst. And Lieutenant Mills is the absolute worst. I worked for her for two years in Personnel and she ragged on me the whole time.”

Whoa, shit. Enemy inside the wire. I stopped breathing altogether and leaned so close to the stall door my eyes crossed.

“Hey, now.” That was Lieutenant Logan, my replacement at my old job. Female soldiers carved their hierarchies along different lines, never straight down the military ranks, and new alliances were being tested. Would Logan stick up for me, officer to officer? “It’s a short-term thing. She won’t be here long.” Instead of reproach, Logan’s voice was edged with mirth. “The colonel needs a body in that chair until a real commander comes in, and now that I’m here, Lieutenant Mills is over strength. She’s the body.”

My face grew hot. Real commander? Body? I clamped my lips shut against the urge to burst out of the stall, roaring. I imagined inhaling the entire room then blowing them away with the release of my torso, all tightly packed plastic explosives and buckshot. These two, Logan especially, had no freaking clue.

About the Author: Nancy Stroer grew up in a very big family in a very small house in Athens, Georgia and served in the beer-soaked trenches of post-Cold War Germany. She holds degrees from Cornell and Boston University, and her work has appeared in the Stars and Stripes, Soldiers magazine, Hallaren Lit Mag, Wrath-Bearing Tree, and Things We Carry Still, an anthology of military writing from Middle West Press.

She’s a teacher and a trainer, and an adjunct faculty member of the Ellyn Satter Institute, a 503(c) not-for-profit that helps individuals and families develop a more joyful relationship to food and their bodies. Playing Army is her first novel.

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